


It Started at the Bookhive

by raininshadows



Category: Hiveswap
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 00:15:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,220
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17151698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raininshadows/pseuds/raininshadows
Summary: The guy Konyyl met online passes out during a job and she has to drag him back to her hive.





	It Started at the Bookhive

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doxian](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doxian/gifts).



> Wetwork - "work involving murder or assassination - used euphemistically" (Merriam-Webster). Think of it as Troll LinkedIn for professional assassins.

It’s not until Konyyl looks around for her new partner that she realizes he’s legitimately having a panic attack right there in the middle of what used to be a bookhive. 

He’s got his arms wrapped around himself like he’s trying to keep warm, his breathing’s fast and erratic, he’s swaying as if his sense of balance has gone down the load gaper even though he was perfectly surefooted earlier that day — she knows the signs. She’s seen them often enough in targets. It’s just her luck, probably, that her new partner doesn’t handle blood well. Teach her to take the first troll who seems reasonably competent on Wetwork. And he’d seemed so good when they were actually working.

But something about the way he’s shaking sparks pity in her blood pusher. She shoves it down quickly — she is _not_ getting into a relationship with some scrawny yellowblood psychic who dresses like he got his clothes out of the Discount Troll Matrix Cosplay bin, especially not on the strength of one job together, no matter how well it went — but it’s enough to send her across the room to him. She wraps an arm around him roughly and leads him over to one of the remaining chairs. “Sit,” she snaps. He does. 

“Breathe slower,” she continues, still brusque. “Look at me.” She’s managed to keep her face pretty clean, so if it’s the blood that’s the problem, that ought to help. His breathing’s calming down a bit, although it’s still too fast, and he’s shivering less. 

Apparently it’s not enough. His eyes close suddenly and he collapses onto her, dead weight. 

Well, nothing to be done for it. She picks him up — he’s skinny, like most psionics, so he’s easy to lift and throw over her shoulder — and heads out. Nobody argues with a troll covered in blood and carrying what appears to be a dead body. She’s not sure where he lives, since he obviously didn’t want to give her his home address, so she ends up taking him back to her place. Once they get home, she dumps him on her loungeplank. It’s nicer than her blood caste would normally allow, but murder is a pretty good job pay-wise. Much better than being a security guard at a tealblood hivestem, which is what she'd been doing before getting into murder for hire. Then she checks Wetwork to see if he mentioned this at all when they were discussing meeting up. 

No, it turns out. No, he didn’t. He does mention that he tends to be pretty clean about his kills, since the psionics make that the easiest way to kill, but she feels like that hardly covers “I have panic attacks and lose consciousness when exposed to large quantities of blood”. 

There’s a groaning noise from the loungeplank, and Konyyl whips around to see him slowly, groggily opening his eyes. “What happened?” he mumbles. 

“You passed out, idiot,” she tells him. “Was it the blood or something?”

He sits up gingerly and brushes his hair out of his face, grimacing as he finds tangles in it. “Maybe? That’s never happened before, though. Did we finish the job?”

“Yeah,” Konyyl says. “Whole bunch of dead teals. Haven’t checked the news yet, but it was a pretty good night’s work. You don’t remember?”

Azdaja shakes his head. “Everything got kind of fuzzy after you moved in. I was mostly just working on not falling over.”

“Work harder next time,” Konyyl mutters. 

“Where are we, anyway?” Azdaja asks, looking around him for the first time. He’s running his hands through his hair, as if attempting to finger-comb out all the tangles it’s developed when he collapsed on a book hive floor and then got dragged through the streets by Konyyl and dumped on her loungeplank. It’s not working terribly well. Konyyl is not an expert in these matters, but she’d guess that’s at least going to need a shower to clean up. 

“My hive,” Konyyl says. “Didn’t know where else to take you.” She tamps down the urge to say something about how it’s not much. It’s good enough, and just because he’s a Duel Strifers champion and has more money than anyone could possibly want doesn’t change that. 

“Nice place,” he says instead. He doesn’t really seem impressed, but he doesn’t seem to have any issues with it either. Might be that he’s still kind of fuzzy from passing out at the bookhive.

“You doing better now?” Konyyl asks. “Not going to pass out in the middle of my lawnring if I kick you out?” She doesn’t really want to kick him out — he actually seems nice enough, even if he is still kind of out of it and he’s usually much more of a bulgehead. But there’s appearances to keep up, and anyway, letting a fellow assassin spend the day at your house is not really the greatest of ideas. 

“Think so, yeah,” he said. “Let me just —“ He stands up, and then his knees buckle underneath him. Konyyl finds herself on the other side of the living room, her arms wrapped firmly around him to take his weight. He’s very close to her, and very warm — yellows tend to be a lot hotter than the gap in the hemospectrum would imply, and he seems to be running hotter than usual even for a yellow. His face is nearly buried in her shoulder. “Maybe not,” he says weakly when he separates from her enough to talk. She’s pretty sure he’s not faking it, either. She has had plenty of experience with people faking illness; for some reason, a lot of people think the assassin will go away and leave them alone if they’re already sick, instead of just calling it an easier job than they would have had otherwise. It doesn’t work. 

She gives up on not pitying him for now. “You can spend the day,” she says. “I don’t have a spare ‘coon, but you can crash out here.” 

He nods, sinking back down onto the loungeplank, although he’s still clinging to her. She ends up coming down with him. “That… would probably be a good idea. Thanks.”

“You have anywhere you need to be tomorrow?” she asks. She doesn’t have any jobs planned for tomorrow — she usually spaces them out more than that, in case something goes wrong and she needs to lay low or go find a mediculler or something — but she knows some trolls do pack them more densely. 

“Nah,” he says, letting go of her slowly. “Next job’s in a few nights.” 

“Got anyone you’re planning on working with?” she asks. Most people like working with partners, but it’s damn hard to find a good one — that’s half the point of Wetwork, really. Aside from the whole ‘passing out at the sight of blood’ thing, he’s not half bad. She’s not too good at planning, and he was great at that. 

“Not at the moment,” he says. Then he looks up at her — he’s leaning back against the back of the loungeplank, where she’s sitting upright, so she’s above him. “We could do it together, if you’re not already working that day. Seems like a pretty straightforward job, but it never hurts to have a partner along.”

“I’d like that,” she says, and grins.


End file.
